GLAM Workbench
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Trove newspapers: data dashboard¶

Trove's collection of digitised newspapers is always changing – new articles and newspapers are being added by the NLA, while Trove users are busy correcting OCRd text and adding tags and comments. The search you run today might produce different results than the same query did a month ago, a year ago, or ten years ago. Researchers need to understand how these changes affect the queries they make, the results they find, and the arguments they construct. This dashboard helps researchers understand the context of their queries by presenting a snapshot of Trove's digitised newspapers, based on weekly data harvests. It shows Trove's current make up from a number of angles, as well as highlighting recent changes. It is updated every Sunday.

  • Total articles and user activity
  • Total articles by publication year
  • Total articles by publication year and state
  • Article categories
  • Newspaper titles
  • Total articles by publication state
  • Significant events
Last updated: Sunday, 3 December 2023

Total articles and user activity¶

Latest data harvest 03 December 2023
First data harvest 24 April 2022
Total harvests 85
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_activity.csv

As of 03 December 2023 there are 243,003,188 digitised newspaper articles in Trove.

  Current total Change since 26 Nov 2023 Change since 05 Nov 2023 Change since 24 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
All articles 243,003,188 159,352 721,807 8,491,098 100.00%
Articles with corrections 15,280,881 20,280 79,356 1,425,342 6.29%
Articles with tags 4,850,576 3,621 12,972 447,582 2.00%
Articles with comments 272,933 341 1,204 34,242 0.11%

Total articles by publication year¶

Latest data harvest 03 December 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 81
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_year.csv

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles by year of publication. The distribution will change over time as digitisation priorities shift and more newspapers are added. This chart is useful in understanding how digitisation priorities and copyright restraints have shaped the total newspaper corpus.


Total articles by publication year and state¶

Latest data harvest 03 December 2023
First data harvest 19 April 2022
Total harvests 81
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_year_and_state.csv

This interactive chart helps you explore the distribution of articles by both publication year and state. Click on a state in the bar chart or legend to filter the results by year. Click anywhere in the background of the chart to reset. This enables you to compare digitisation patterns in different states and see how they contribute to the whole corpus.

Total articles added since 26 Nov 2023 by publication year and state

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles added since the previous harvest by year and place of publication. It's useful in seeing how search results from particular time periods and locations might be affected by current digitisation priorities.

Total articles added since 19 Apr 2022 by publication year and state

This chart shows the total number of digitised newspaper articles added since the first harvest by year and place of publication. It's useful in seeing how search results from particular time periods or locations might be affected by recent digitisation priorities.


Article categories¶

Latest data harvest 03 December 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 86
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_category.csv
  Current total Change since 26 Nov 2023 Change since 05 Nov 2023 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
Advertising 45,488,651 31,233 150,372 1,986,944 18.719%
Article 168,485,887 113,201 501,042 5,693,427 69.335%
Arts And Culture 4,539 7 47 1,169 0.002%
Classified Advertisements And Notices 1,641 0 8 218 0.001%
Commerce And Business 5,592 25 132 2,596 0.002%
Detailed Lists, Results, Guides 27,047,921 14,654 69,431 795,960 11.131%
Display Advertisement 500 0 0 36 0.000%
Editorial 17,887 9 48 4,480 0.007%
Family Notices 1,994,381 310 1,185 59,578 0.821%
Humour 34,831 8 121 7,323 0.014%
Law, Courts, And Crime 13,389 23 124 3,926 0.006%
Letters 14,043 18 69 2,033 0.006%
Literature 36,542 300 410 1,580 0.015%
News 15,552 83 296 5,134 0.006%
Obituaries 15,371 56 191 4,238 0.006%
Official Appointments And Notices 1,242 5 20 177 0.001%
Puzzles 51,319 1 6 11,387 0.021%
Reviews 3,216 31 95 1,235 0.001%
Shipping Notices 3,168 19 83 1,363 0.001%
Sport And Games 20,384 1 24 5,844 0.008%
Weather 17,075 0 8 7,718 0.007%

Newspaper titles¶

Latest data harvest 03 December 2023
First data harvest 20 April 2022
Total harvests 83
Data https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-totals/blob/master/data/total_articles_by_newspaper.csv

As of 03 December 2023 there are 1,790 different newspapers in Trove.

Total newspapers 1,790
Earliest publication date 05 March 1803
Latest publication date 19 December 2022

Newspapers by state of publication¶

This chart shows the place of publication of newspaper titles in Trove.

Changes in the number of newspapers by state of publication¶

  Current total Change since 26 Nov 2023 Change since 05 Nov 2023 Change since 20 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 8 0 0 0 0.42%
International 13 0 0 0 0.69%
National 9 0 0 4 0.48%
New South Wales 551 0 1 36 29.25%
Northern Territory 8 0 0 0 0.42%
Queensland 107 0 0 3 5.68%
South Australia 157 1 1 3 8.33%
Tasmania 115 0 0 0 6.10%
Victoria 440 0 2 33 23.35%
Western Australia 382 0 0 32 20.28%

Newspapers added since 26 Nov 2023

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Newspapers added since 05 Nov 2023

  • No newspapers added in this period.

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 26 Nov 2023

title_id title change in articles link
1191 The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 - 1954; 1956) 53,304 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1191
1825 The Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (Vic. : 1897 - 1905; 1913 - 1920) 12,218 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1825
1852 Daily Mirror (Sydney, NSW : 1941 - 1955) 93,800 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1852
1863 The Yarrawonga Mercury and Mulwala (N.S.W.) News (Vic. : 1882 - 1897) 30 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1863

Changes in the number of articles from newspapers since 05 Nov 2023

title_id title change in articles link
232 The Ballarat Courier (Vic. : 1869 - 1886; 1914 - 1918) 10,900 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title232
275 The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1955) 1,411 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title275
1191 The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 - 1954; 1956) 130,756 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1191
1825 The Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (Vic. : 1897 - 1905; 1913 - 1920) 52,967 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1825
1852 Daily Mirror (Sydney, NSW : 1941 - 1955) 500,317 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1852
1863 The Yarrawonga Mercury and Mulwala (N.S.W.) News (Vic. : 1882 - 1897) 30 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1863
1871 The Journal : Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr Journal (Traralgon, Vic. : 1923 - 1929) 9,955 https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-title1871

Total articles by publication state¶

Data about the number of articles by publication place (state) is available both from the main result API using the state facet, and from the newspaper API. As noted under Significant events, these totals don't always agree. I've included both below, so you can compare.

Number of articles by state of publication (via result API)¶

Number of articles by state of publication (via newspaper API)¶

Changes in the number of articles by state of publication (via result API)¶

  Current total Change since 26 Nov 2023 Change since 05 Nov 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.357%
International 854,022 0 0 2,842 0.351%
National 657,326 0 0 204,582 0.271%
New South Wales 85,389,451 93,800 513,194 2,489,778 35.139%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.168%
Queensland 41,131,526 0 0 41,590 16.926%
South Australia 25,011,982 0 4,005 449,127 10.293%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.523%
Victoria 45,025,904 65,552 204,608 4,763,009 18.529%
Western Australia 25,369,631 0 0 679,829 10.440%

Changes in the number of articles by state of publication (via newspaper API)¶

  Current total Change since 26 Nov 2023 Change since 05 Nov 2023 Change since 19 Apr 2022 Percentage of total
ACT 3,296,997 0 0 0 1.357%
International 854,022 0 0 0 0.351%
National 663,996 0 0 211,837 0.273%
New South Wales 85,389,451 93,800 513,194 3,455,794 35.139%
Northern Territory 409,433 0 0 0 0.168%
Queensland 41,131,526 0 0 41,590 16.926%
South Australia 25,011,982 4,005 4,005 451,203 10.293%
Tasmania 15,850,246 0 0 74 6.523%
Victoria 45,025,904 65,552 240,256 3,482,849 18.529%
Western Australia 25,369,631 0 0 1,000,269 10.440%

Significant events¶

While the changes documented here generally reflect the addition of new articles and newspapers, the total numbers can also be affected by system configuration and optimisation events, such as rebuilding the index. It's difficult to highlight these sorts of anomalies in the charts above, but where I notice them I'll add a note here.

31 May 2022 – reindex?¶

Between the harvests on 29 May and 5 June 2022 there was a dramatic change in the distribution of articles by state (using the state facet). The number of articles from NSW decreased by 939,065, and the number of articles from Victoria increased by 961,387. There were also some smaller changes affecting other states. There was a scheduled maintenance window on 31 May, which makes me think that these reflect changes in the underlying search index, rather than the actual number of articles. Further evidence for this is the fact that the number of articles per state calculated by using the newspaper API endpoint were out-of-sync with the article totals until the end of May. Since then, both sets of article totals have remained in sync. So, in short, the number of articles returned by the state facet between 19 April 2022 (when my harvests started) and 31 May 2022 can't be trusted.


Created by Tim Sherratt for the GLAM Workbench. Support this project by becoming a GitHub sponsor.